With grateful thoughts and a loving heart, I’m enjoying childhood memories today. Today would be my father’s 100th birthday. I remember sitting on his lap as he drove the McCormick Farmall H, plowing for Uncle Er. When we got to the headland, he let me steer and turn the tractor around, though I’m sure he had his hand on the steering wheel; a child needs help learning. A few years older, I’d ride with him on the milk truck when I had a day off from school. I was so proud, helping him work. Father grew up on a farm and started his working life at Wardway, a factory in Chicago Heights. A few years later he went to work for Dixie Dairy, where he worked forty-some years. He started with house-to-house delivery, did well, and became a supervisor of wholesale routes. I spent eight summers delivering milk, $90 a week, big money, but best was pride that I could work with my dad. How sweet the memories!
Savoring memories is a sign that life is narrowing. Our grandsons are making memories now but not taking the time to enjoy them. That’ll come later. Our recent graduates are getting ordained and installed, filled with hopes for what they’ll do in ministry. That’s as it should be. “Like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers” (Psalm 90:5-6). In youth the horizon is far away, but sooner than we ever expected, “the golden evening brightens in the west.” Dad died at age 65, 35 years ago this month.
For me, the mystery of God gets bigger as my life gets smaller. It’s obviously not that way for many Americans today. Some were never steered to faith life and participation in church. Others were but have “grown up” and dismissed the simplicity of faith. I wonder who’s really simple. “One who is faithful in a very little…” (Luke 16:10). In remembering the small things of family life, we have recurring glimpses of the unfathomable love of our Creator. And with memories hope, hope for family life in America.
“Our Father, by whose name / All fatherhood is known,
Who does in love proclaim / Each family Thine own,
Bless Thou all parents, guarding well, / With constant love as sentinel,
The homes in which Thy people dwell.” (Lutheran Service Book, 863:1)
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